The Supposed Excessive Sexuality of Lower Classes and Tribal Cultures

[Those curious about the history of the Victorian Web (which began before the WWW in another hypermedia environment) might be interested to learn that this document was one of the very first written specifically for what became this site by someone outside Brown University. (The materials on public health that Professor Wohl also contributed came from his previously published book [GPL].]

As Frederick William Farrar, the headmaster of Marlborough and Dean of Canterbury, stated clearly in his essay, "Aptitudes of Races," the Hottentot's moral condition was marked by "promiscuous intercourse," and there were many references to Black sexuality in British accounts of the Jamaica Revolt and the American Civil War.

To these attitudes towards Blacks one should compare the generalization that in the slums marriage was virtually unknown and that "incest is common and no form of vice or sexuality causes surprise or attracts attention." Middle class willingness to believe the very worst of the working classes speaks eloquently of their own sexuality. It also suggests transference of sins we fear in ourselves to scapegoat "out-groups."